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Mikal Curas
Mikal Curas was a Lord General of the Astra Militarum, as well as supreme commander of the Achilus Crusade's Orpheus Salient. Alongside the Imperial Navy's Battlegroup Argo, he was slain at the hands of Hive Fleet Dagon during his investigation into the heart of that hive fleet's Shadow in the Warp. History Lord General Mikal Curas was a man of great piety and formidable charisma, who earned the love and respect of the countless millions of soldiers under his command. His career had seen him elevated to heights of power the likes of which defy the imaginings of most people, and he had risen to the challenge each and every time. Born to a minor noble household on Luggnum, the impulsive Curas served in the Astra Militarum for thirty standard years before the start of the Achilus Crusade, having reached the rank of Colonel. After serving as Lord General Solomon Tetrarchus' second-in-command during the conquest of Hethgard, his skill was rewarded further by being asked to join the crusade's General Staff -- the youngest officer within that select group. When he was apprised of his mentor's battle plan for retaking the Reach, Curas intuitively understood exactly what Tetrarchus was looking for. In the years that followed, Curas went from being Tetrarchus' advisor to a General in his own right. Indeed, when Solomon Tetrarchus, now raised to become the crusade's Lord Militant, began his assault into the Jericho Reach, he placed command of the Orpheus Salient under newly promoted Lord General Mikal Curas. Although his rank and prestige allowed him to use the full honorific of "Lord General of the Imperial Guard," Curas felt that using such an ostentatious title would alienate him from the rest of his officers. Having learned much of his command style from the crusade's new Warmaster, Curas gathered together his advisors, tacticians, and regimental commanders and laid out his goals for accomplishing the task set before him. His plan involved lightning fast raids on planets that had fallen into disloyalty to the Imperium with an emphasis on removing the corrupt leadership of a planet first. Curas had a strong belief in the theory of "Original Purity," which held that Mankind was inherently gifted with moral purity by the God-Emperor and would only become corrupt if forced to perform corrupt acts. By removing the leaders of a planet in the opening stages of an attack, he felt that the general populace would return to this state of purity and be loyal to the forces of the Imperium. While publicly approving of his plan, most of the officers under his command felt that this was a naively optimistic point of view. They could not argue however, as not only did Curas enjoy the favour of Lord Militant Tetrarchus, but the Ecclesiarchy also agreed strongly with the idea. Whether or not his ideology was correct, the results of Curas' actions could not be denied. The Orpheus Salient quickly became the most successful of the three salients of the Achilus Crusade. First Castobel fell, then Shoinmunt, Treyan and Eleusis, followed swiftly by Freya. These were just the first of hundreds of planets to fall before the might of the crusade. At the forefront of all of these actions was General Curas himself, leading Battlegroup Argo personally. His dedication to the crusade and obvious success made him an extremely popular leader with his men. General Curas' career was cut short when he and Battlegroup Argo went into the heart of the area of difficult communications in the Orpheus Salient that turned out to be the Shadow in the Warp created by the arrival of the Tyranids' Hive Fleet Dagon in the Jericho Reach. Neither he nor Battlefleet Argo survived their encounter with the hive fleet, the general himself slain by Tyranids who boarded his ship. Records of the event were sealed by Lord Admiral Anastasia Arkelius upon their discovery six solar months later within the logs of a stray picket ship found drifting through space. Curas' subordinate Lord Commissar Vance Theren then created the so-called "Triumvirate" comprised of himself, General Derian Arkelius, and Anastasia Arkelius that took command of the Orpheus Salient of the crusade. Theren was the mastermind of this "Great Deception" the three perpetrated to not let any of the men and women fighting in the Orpheus Salient know that Curas was killed by the Tyranids until his replacement could arrive from the crusade's High Command. Lingering echoes of Curas' command still remain in the salient. While most communication across the Orpheus Salient is stifled and hindered by the Shadow in the Warp, astropaths on dozens of worlds still report receiving fragments of orders, communiqués and instructions from the lord general bearing the ident-memes of Battlegroup Argo's senior astropath in spite of its destruction five Terran years ago. Most dismiss these echoes as being scattered remnants of old orders given before his death, but some are not so certain, claiming that they have received messages sent after the lord general's supposed death, and that they match no orders actually given by the salient's leadership. Sources * Deathwatch: The Achilus Assault (RPG), pp. 41-43 * Deathwatch: The Jericho Reach (RPG), pg. 134 Category:M Category:Characters Category:Imperial Characters Category:Imperium Category:Jericho Reach